


hide and seek

by gayprophets



Series: archivist sasha (sexy archivist chronicles) [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Archivist Sasha James, Body Horror, S2 finale, hello everyone i heard 161 and went insane, not-them scary, you can tell this jon is evil cos hes white
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:35:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23482510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayprophets/pseuds/gayprophets
Summary: The tape clicks off. Sasha looks at it for a moment, sitting silent on her desk, innocent, like the reminder of just this last January wasn’t a punch to the gut. Jon’s voice- deep and a little grating with his irritation- is buzzing against her eardrums still, echoing in her ribcage. She remembers Jon trying to hide his smile by chewing on his cheek, but the expression is still plastered onto man sitting at his desk outside, pale and round-faced and pleasant. The image of it sits odd with his mouth; her brain wants to tell her that party was full of him grinning, delighted, gleefully blowing out the candles, but she can hear Jon in the tapes, trying to bury his amusement in irritation at being bothered, trying to hide his surprise that they cared, which means her brain is lying to her-She’s standing, although she doesn’t remember choosing to do so, her chair tipped to the floor with a crash. There’s either a scream or a sob bubbling in the back of her throat, and it tastes like bile. Someone taps on the door, then it creaks open.“Sasha?” asks the man who is not Jon, his voice kind, high and soft. “You alright? I heard a noise.”-archivist sasha and the season 2 finale.
Series: archivist sasha (sexy archivist chronicles) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1689421
Comments: 51
Kudos: 544





	hide and seek

The tape clicks off. Sasha looks at it for a moment, sitting silent on her desk, innocent, like the reminder of just this last January wasn’t a punch to the gut. Jon’s voice- deep and a little grating with his irritation- is buzzing against her eardrums still, echoing in her ribcage. She remembers Jon trying to hide his smile by chewing on his cheek, but the expression is still plastered onto the man sitting at his desk outside, pale and round-faced and pleasant. The image of it sits odd with his mouth; her brain _wants_ to tell her that party was full of him grinning, delighted, gleefully blowing out the candles, but she can _hear_ Jon in the tapes, trying to bury his amusement in irritation at being bothered, trying to hide his surprise that they cared, which means her brain is _lying to her-_

She’s standing, although she doesn’t remember choosing to do so, her chair tipped to the floor with a crash. There’s either a scream or a sob bubbling in the back of her throat, and it tastes like bile. Someone taps on the door, then it creaks open.

“Sasha?” asks the man who is not Jon, his voice kind, high and soft. “You alright? I heard a noise.”

The bag of tools sitting on her filing cabinet has a hammer sticking out of it- she’s supposed to be putting up more shelves, but hasn’t gotten around to it. It’s heavier than she thought it would be, and the momentary adjustment of balance gives Not-Jon enough time to back out of the room, say, alarmed, “Sasha? What are you-?”

She hits him across the temple with a meaty _thunk._ He makes a _noise_ like _nothing she’s ever heard,_ a grating electric wail of dissonant _rage,_ goes down easy, and everyone’s moving now, she can hear Tim and Martin yelling from a few miles off but she doesn’t care, doesn’t _care,_ hits the floor with him and cracks him across the face again, again, _again,_ then the claw sticks into the meat of his cheek-

Someone hooks her behind both arms before she can pull it out of him, yanks her up and off, and she whips her head back, their nose breaking against her skull, white sparks popping across her vision as they both stagger from the blow. _“Let me go!”_ she snarls. _“He killed Jon! He killed him!”_

“That _is_ Jon!” Tim shouts into her ear, voice high with panic and thick with the blood from his nose. He drags her back, almost tripping as she scrambles to get her feet under her. “That’s _Jon!_ are you _fucking insane?!_ What the _fuck,_ Sasha?!” Martin is crouching over Not-Jon’s body, twitching like a rabbit in death-throes on the floor, _no no no Jon, Jon, stay down, it’s okay, it’s okay, I’m calling 999, don’t move, it’ll be okay-_

“It’s _not!”_ Sasha shouts, twisting in Tim’s grip, digging her nails into his arm, like a band of iron across her ribcage. “Let _go_ of me! Martin, get _away_ from him!”

 _“I’m Jon,”_ Not-Jon says, twisting on the floor until he can look at her, one eye a ruined, pulpy mass of black and red flesh, the other bright, _hot_ blue, she can _see_ its inhuman shade now, burning into her like a brand. If he were human, he’d be dead, she’s sure. He’s smiling, although it’s hard to tell with the hammer still stuck through his cheek. “I’m _Jon-,”_

 _“You’re wearing his face!”_ Sasha screams, and she can’t tell if the hot wet on her cheeks is the spray of blood or her tears. She needs to kill him, she needs to finish the job. “It’s not _Jon,_ please, Martin, you _know_ it hasn’t been Jon, it’ll kill you _too-_ Tim, let go, _let go of me-,”_

“I- I don’t-,” Martin says, although he’s already leaning back, taking his hands off of the thing pretending to be Jon. “It’s Jon, right?” he says, pushing himself to his feet, eyes wide and hands shaking as he clutches his phone. “It has to be. It has to be.”

Something _cracks_ inside of Not-Jon, and Martin’s face goes white. It sighs gustily, then pushes itself to its feet. Its torso is too long now, and it towers over them all, the knuckles of its hands brushing the ground as it _cracks_ its way into longer limbs. Another _crack_ . And _another._ The hammer drops out of Not-Jon’s skinny cheek and hits the floor, making room for long, long teeth, a gaping mouth. Tim lets go of her, and his hand goes from under her arm, dropping down to her wrist, clutching it hard enough that her pulse beats in in her hand, fast and hard like a kickdrum. Not-Jon’s back slams against the ceiling and it hunches over, hitting all fours with a heavy _whud,_ hands the size of dinner plates splaying against the rough green carpeting, skin desaturating to near greyscale, blonde hair going lank and stringy, plastering against its long, flat face, the skin stretched taut over bones that do not make up a skull.

“You _hurt_ me, Sasha,” the thing that has never been Jon says, bright blood bubbling in the spaces between its teeth. Its eyes are tiny and round, thick eyelids and black irises, the tiniest pinprick of white for a pupil. “I thought we were _friends.”_ Its voice is _nothing_ that should ever be, whining with bright reverb, doubling up over itself like it’s coming from multiple throats. Behind its teeth there is nothing, a black emptiness, and it’s blurring at the edges now, indecisive about where its impossible body ends. Sasha’s eardrums pop. Her mouth tastes like a wet penny as she bites through her lip, sour and copper and hot.

“Run,” she tells Tim, Martin. It’s focused on her, she’s sure, so she has to get them away. Martin is already staggering backwards, towards the doors- she’s glad they have two exits, at least, hopefully they can both make it out. If she can make it to the tunnels, maybe she will too. She pries Tim’s hand off her wrist, wishing she had kept a grip on the hammer, shoves him towards the yellow door, and lunges.

She misses the hammer by a mile and Not-Jon misses her by an inch- there’s something like wind across her face as one thin, wavering hand goes to grab her, punching into and through the wall like a bullet through paper. Sasha runs.

**Author's Note:**

> i love that her canonical reaction to fear is violence. i might write a few more of these just bc we went insane about it on my discord server. comments and kudos are desperately appreciated.
> 
> [you can find me @themlet on tumblr](themlet.tumblr.com)


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